MAY 18–25, 2022
Explore
EOU Arts
Fest
Celebrate
Family
Fun Fest
Listen
Bad Bad
Hats
PAGE 3
PAGE 7
PAGE 12
WWW.GOEASTERNOREGON.COM
A passport to
art and culture
PAGE 8
Lisa Britton/Go! Magazine
The National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center
is closed for renovations, but is setting up exhibits
inside the Baker Heritage Museum. Both are included
in the Baker County Culture and Heritage Passport.
“The food is fresh, locally sourced and unbelievably delicious.
Their IPAs are distinct and clearly not copy-cats of each other or
anyone else making NW IPAs.” - Yelp Review, Bend. Oregon
INSIDE
GO! Magazine
Check out art and
museums in Go!
LOCAL A3
SPORTS A6
Little League reports
break-in at Wade Williams
Baker boys golf
team 2nd at state
1219 Washington Ave • La Grande, OR 97850
www.sideabeer.com
IN THIS EDITION: LOCAL • BUSINESS & AG LIFE • SPORTS
QUICK HITS
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Good Day Wish
To A Subscriber
A special good day to
Herald subscriber Mike
Schoeningh of North Powder.
BRIEFING
—————
Groups urge residents
to attend school board
meeting
Baker County United is
planning its monthly freedom
rally at the Baker 5J School
District offi ce, 2090 Fourth
St., on Thursday, May 19, at
5 p.m. The group is urging
people to attend the school
budget committee meeting,
which starts at 5 p.m., and
the school board meeting
at 6 p.m., to ask questions
about the district’s spend-
ing priorities, including the
board’s recent decision to
buy two homes to house
foreign students attending
Baker High School through
the district’s Oregon Interna-
tional School program.
A local parent, Heather
Dallstream, is also urging
residents to attend the board
meeting and learn about
district priorities.
Brown nominates local
man to remain on EOU
board of trustees
Gov. Kate Brown has nomi-
nated Richard Chaves of Baker
City to serve another four-year
term on the board of trustees
for Eastern Oregon University,
starting July 1, 2022.
Chaves’ current term on
the board expires June 30.
The Oregon Senate Com-
mittee on Rules is scheduled
to consider Brown’s list of
nominees for a variety of
state boards and commis-
sioners in June.
WEATHER
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Today
51/32
Rain showers
Friday
60/34
Partly sunny
Full forecast on the back
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The space below is for a postage label
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Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityherald.com
THURSDAY, MAY 19, 2022 • $1.50
Garrick, Alderson advance to general election
Justus, Witham
race has not
been decided
BY JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
One of the two races for a
Baker County Commission
slot was too close to be deter-
mined the day after the May
17 primary.
But the tiny gap between
Kody Justus and Christina
Witham — Justus had a 3-vote
advantage as of Wednesday,
May 18 — isn’t even the key
factor at this point.
Because neither candidate
has more than 50% of the to-
tal votes cast, it’s possible that
Justus and Witham will both
advance to the Nov. 8 general
election, where they’ll again
be the only two names on the
ballot.
They are vying for position
2, one of the two part-time
spots on the three-member
Board of Commissioners.
According to Oregon elec-
tion law, if no candidate in a
contested race gets more than
50% of the votes cast, then the
top two advance to the general
election. That standard also
applies in races, like this one,
with just two candidates.
In unofficial results from
the Baker County Clerk’s Of-
fice on Wednesday, Justus had
2,485 votes and Witham had
2,482.
But the more meaningful
statistic for now is the percent-
age of the total votes cast that
each candidate has received.
Justus had 49.53%.
Witham had 49.47%.
The reason Justus doesn’t
have at least 50% of the votes,
even with his slim lead, is that
there were also 50 write-in
votes as of Wednesday, which
constitutes 1% of the 5,017
total votes cast. That means
Justus and Witham are divid-
ing 99% of the votes, and with
See, Election/Page A5
Spring
chinook
season
opens
late
BY JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
Rotarians Dave Lindley, left, and Brenda Holly help add sponsor stickers to 1,000 books that will be given to local students.
Baker loves books
Baker City Rotary
Club supports
literacy program
BY LISA BRITTON
lbritton@bakercityherald.com
S
urrounded by stacks of books and
supplied with sheets of stickers,
members of the Baker City Rotary
Club helped label about 1,000 books on
May 9 to support the REAL program.
That acronym stands for Read Ev-
eryday And Learn, which is a project
of the Baker County Community Lit-
eracy Coalition.
Rotary also donates money every
year to help purchase books.
“As a club, we believe literacy is a big
deal and we want to help anyway we
can,” said Anthony Bailey, club presi-
dent. “This is the biggest way we can
impact the most kids.”
Literacy, he said, is one of Rotary’s
“key areas of service.”
The club’s other community service
projects include a coat drive (in collab-
oration with Sorbenots), ringing bells
for The Salvation Army every Decem-
ber, scholarships, volunteering at the
1A basketball tournaments and orga-
nizing the community Easter egg hunt.
To support these projects, the Ro-
tary Club sells buffalo burgers during
Miners Jubilee every year in Geis-
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
Baker City Rotary Club members Dotty Miles, right, and Anthony Bailey help add stickers
to books that will be given for free to local school children through the Read Everyday
And Learn program, coordinated by Jessica Dougherty, left. Each year, the club finan-
cially supports the literacy program and Rotarians read with students in the schools.
er-Pollman Park, and on holidays they
place American flags, sponsored by lo-
cal businesses, around Baker City.
“We especially feel pride on patriotic
holidays such as Independence Day, Vet-
erans Day and Memorial Day because
without our service men and women we
wouldn’t have the rights we have today,
and many have made the ultimate sacri-
fice for those rights,” Bailey said.
The Rotary Club meets at noon on
Mondays in the banquet room at the
Baker Tower. Potential members are
welcome.
“People are welcome to come check
it out,” Bailey said.
Anglers had to wait longer
than they have in more than a
decade, but they will again get
the chance to hook a spring chi-
nook salmon in the Snake River
between Hells Canyon Dam and
Dug Bar.
The Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife (ODFW),
which typically has opened the
spring chinook season in late
April, announced Tuesday after-
noon, May 17, that the season
had opened that day.
(Spring chinook are so named
because they typically move
from the Pacific Ocean into the
Columbia River starting in early
spring to begin their upstream
migration.)
The issue this year is that few
spring chinook are expected to
arrive in that reach of the Snake
River, said Kyle Bratcher, fish bi-
ologist at ODFW’s Enterprise
office.
But the story, and the problem
that led to this situation, actually
dates to 2018.
There was a meager return of
spring chinook that year to the
fish trap that Idaho Power Com-
pany operates just below Hells
Canyon Dam, Bratcher said.
Workers harvest eggs and
sperm from those fish, and the
eggs are reared at Idaho Power’s
Rapid River hatchery near Rig-
gins, Idaho.
Volunteer readers
Rotary members also volunteer with
REAL as readers in the schools, al-
though that hasn’t been possible for the
past two years due to the pandemic.
See, Salmon/Page A3
Island City
man dies in
Fire chief warns county of response delays motorcycle
accident
BY JAYSON JACOBY AND
SAMANTHA O’CONNER
Baker City Herald
Baker City Fire Chief
Sean Lee has notified Baker
County that the city fire
department might have to
delay responses to fire and
ambulance calls due to a
staffing shortage.
In a Tuesday, May 17,
email to county commis-
sioners and Jason Yenco-
pal, the county’s emergency
management director, Lee
wrote that “We are at the
point that we will have to
start staging the calls for
service that we receive. We
will be able to take the first
call for service, but doubles
and/or triples may have
to wait until the crew can
clear the first call. When we
receive fire call and medi-
TODAY
Issue 4
28 pages
cal call simultaneously, we
will have to triage the calls
as they come and deter-
mine the greatest threat to
life and property. My hope
is that this will give you an
opportunity to find a pro-
vider for the interim that
will be able to maintain the
existing level of service as is
referenced in OAR 333-260-
0070 (d).”
Lee wrote that the depart-
ment’s “staffing level has re-
duced, and existing staff are
not responding to call back.”
Casey Johnson, a fire-
fighter/paramedic and pres-
ident of the local union
chapter that represents fire-
fighters, called Lee’s email
a “direct dig” at firefighters,
and in particular the refer-
ence to staff not responding
to call backs.
Business ...........................B1
Classified ....................B2-B4
Comics ..............................B5
Johnson blames the fre-
quent need to call in off-duty
employees, and the resulting
rise in overtime costs, on the
city’s decision in July 2021 to
change the work schedules
for the department’s three
division chiefs.
Rather than working the
same 24 hours on, 48 hours
off schedule that firefighter/
paramedics do, two of the
three division chiefs work a
standard 40-hour weekday
schedule, Johnson said.
He said that means the
division chiefs aren’t avail-
able as often to go out on
calls or to cover the station
when a two-person crew is
out on a call.
The result, he said, is that
the department, more of-
ten than before the staffing
change, has to ask off-duty
Community News.............A2
Crossword ...............B2 & B4
Dear Abby .........................B5
See, Books/Page A5
firefighters to respond to
the station, to ensure it is
staffed, when a two-person
crew is out on an ambu-
lance or fire call.
According to city records,
the fire department’s over-
time bill for the nine-month
period July 2021 through
March 2022 was $135,600
— an increase of $69,900, or
94%, from the same period
the previous year.
Among the documents
the city recently added to
its website, www.bakercity.
com, as part of a new am-
bulance service database, is
a chart showing the weekly
number of requests for off-
duty firefighters to respond
to the station, and the per-
centage of responses.
Horoscope ..............B2 & B4
Lottery Results .................A2
News of Record ................A2
See, Chief/Page A2
Baker City Herald
An Island City man died when
he lost control of the motorcycle
he was riding while exiting Inter-
state 84 in Baker City on Tuesday
afternoon, May 17.
John Dale Atwood, 73, was pro-
nounced dead at the scene.
The accident happened around
4:24 p.m., according to an Oregon
State Police report.
Atwood was riding westbound
on the freeway when he took the
offramp at Exit 304, the Campbell
Street interchange.
“For unknown reasons,” At-
wood lost control of the 2011
Harley-Davidson and crashed
into a guardrail, according to the
OSP report. He was thrown from
the motorcycle, which continued
down the offramp.
Opinion .............................A4
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Sports ...............................A6
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Turning Backs ..................A2
Weather ............................B6